The American Trails organization recently presented a national Trail Worker award to UC Davis staff member Andrew Fulks, whose work you can see underfoot on university land and elsewhere in the region.
NATIONAL MONUMENT
Andrew Fulks did not delay in becoming one of the first people to hike in the newly designated Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument.
As co-founder and board president of the Tuleyome nonprofit conservation organization, he’d been pushing to protect the region for years. And he was out there last Friday (July 10) when, across the country in Washington, D.C., President Barack Obama signed the proclamation establishing Berryessa Snow Mountain.
Fulks, director of the UC Davis Putah Creek Riparian Reserve and Campus Naturalized Lands, could not have been happier — especially because the 331,000-acre monument takes in the Berryessa Peak Trail that he labored on for more than three years.
“If the trail had not been built, the 9,600 publicly owned acres of Berryessa Peak would not have been part of the monument,” Fulks said. “The trail provides the only linkage between the public lands that connected the rest of the Blue Ridge to Berryessa Peak.”
Before that, the peak was landlocked — that is, although publicly owned (U.S. Bureau of Land Management), the peak was off-limits to the public, given that none of the ranches surrounding the peak had granted access through their land. Then Tuleyome brokered an easement across one of the ranches, and Fulks finally had a way to blaze a trail to the peak.
“If the trail hadn’t been there, the peak would have remained landlocked and had been excluded from the national monument,” he said. “That’s a huge deal. It means not only does the trail provide a public recreational benefit, it led to permanent protection of an additional 9,600 acres. Hard to describe how good that feels.”
“The mountain had been neglected for so long because of the lack of access. And now its name is part of the monument’s name.”
On campus, he is the director of the Putah Creek Riparian Reserve and Campus Naturalized Lands. The reserve includes three miles of trails between Old Davis Road (south of Interstate 80) and Pedrick Road.
They used to be “social trails,” with lots of erosion and no connection to one another, basically just paths worn in the dirt, said Fulks, a landscape architect. He rerouted, redesigned and worked with the reserve steward and volunteers to rebuild the trails.
Off campus, he’s been a key participant in developing a number of trails, including one at Yolo County’s Valley Vista Regional Park and another that took him to the top of Berryessa Peak in the Coast Range overlooking Lake Berryessa.
Trails for future generations
American Trails bestows national and international Trail Worker awards in recognition of outstanding contributions, and consistent support for trail planning, development or maintenance (Fulks does all three).
He received his award in Portland, Ore., during the 22nd International Trails Symposium. The award, he said, “helps you know you are on the right track and that your work has meaning beyond personal fulfillment.”
Fulks grew up in Mountain View, northwest of San Jose, in close proximity to the recreational lands of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District where he developed his love for hiking and exploring. About 15 years ago, he had an epiphany: “I realized that all the trails and preserved open spaces that I had enjoyed in my youth, and made me who I am, had been built by people I didn’t know and would never know, but to whom I owed a debt of gratitude.
“So, at that moment I realized that I needed to do the same thing for future generations, who may not know who I was or what I did, but would be equally grateful. We owe this to future generations.”
At Valley Vista Regional Park, he designed the 1.5-mile-long Valley Vista Trail and is working with the park to add four to six more miles of trails. And, just above UC Davis’ Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve, south of Lake Berryessa, he designed and joined volunteers in building a 2.5-mile loop called Annie’s Trail, connecting and adding to the trail system on UC land.
'Life project': Berryessa Peak Trail
Then there’s what he described as his “life project”: It's a seven-mile trail with a 3,500-foot elevation gain to Berryessa Peak in the northern inner Coast Range — an undertaking that earned him his nomination for a Trail Worker award. Fulks and other volunteers completed the Berryessa Peak Trail in December 2012 after three years of construction, hiking in farther and farther on each workday.
He said he envisions a regional trail system connecting with the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, a continuous corridor through the 100-mile-long national monument, and eventually a trail between the Bay Area and the Oregon border.
Fulks graduated from UC Davis in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science degree in landscape architecture. He obtained a license in that field in 1997 and returned to UC Davis in 2002 as the director of the Putah Creek reserve.
“How many other campuses have a live stream with salmon runs each year?” he asked. “Each reserve around the UC system is unique. They provide places to relax, enjoy nature, take part in community events, have classes, do cutting-edge research, or, in the case of the UC Davis cross country team, train and hold meets!”
Putah Creek is a campus reserve, while Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve, while administered by UC Davis, is part of the UC Natural Reserve System.
“For the UC systemwide reserves, in addition to the research support they provide, they protect key examples of the biodiversity of California,” Fulks said. “In an era of climate change, these living laboratories are key to understanding both our past and future on the planet.”
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Dave Jones, Dateline, 530-752-6556, dljones@ucdavis.edu